The present invention relates to image forming apparatuses having parts that can be replaced.
An image forming apparatus has a large number of replacement parts and, conventionally, a service engineer was carrying out the work of replacing the replacement parts. The service engineers would have received some training in advance related to replacement of the replacement parts, and were carrying out replacement according to the replacement procedure given in an instruction manual related to parts replacement.
In the Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei 7-1790, an information processing apparatus with a built in printer has been disclosed that makes an instruction manual unnecessary by inputting the fact that not a service engineer but the user replaces replacement parts, and by outputting voice guidance in accordance or displaying the guidance information in the screen according to that input.
Conventionally, since a service engineer was replacing the replacement parts of image forming apparatuses, very often it was not possible to use the image forming apparatus until the service engineer arrived. In that case, there would be down time of the machine and the rate of operation had decreased. In addition, it was necessary to consider in advance the cost of a service engineering visiting the site of the machine as a necessary expense, and because of this there was the problem that generally the running cost increased.
As a countermeasure for these problems, making it possible for the user to carry out the replacement was considered as a method of solving the problems, and for this, it was necessary to provide means that make replacement easy. In the information processing apparatus with a built-in printer described in the Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei 7-1790, although there is the effect that the instruction manual becomes unnecessary, the effect was insufficient for the problem of making replacement easy.
The present invention was made considering the above problems, and the purpose of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus in which it is possible for the user et al. to carry out easily replacement of replacement parts without having to obtain the help of a service engineer who has received training related to the replacement of parts.